YouTube's looking to cash in early on Super Bowl 50 ads

With Super Bowl 50 set to kick off on Sunday, February 7th, YouTube doesn't want advertisers waiting until then to debut their highly anticipated commercials. As part of a major push for its AdBlitz video platform, which hosts Super Bowl ads and promotes them across Google's advertising network, the company's encouraging advertisers to show content on YouTube before The Big Game even starts. And it wants to make it clear that the strategy really works.

Budweiser's "Lost Dog" commercial from last year, for instance, racked up over 18 million views prior to the start of Super Bowl 49 -- it now has more than 30 million. Of course, YouTube wouldn't be the only party to benefit from this move, since millions of people would visit its website and interact with these videos (More clicks, more cash.) There's only one requirement to be involved with AdBlitz: companies have to be an official Super Bowl 50 advertiser, otherwise they're not eligible to participate.

To bring things full circle, YouTube's capping the NFL celebrations with a new original series called How to Win Game Day, starring some of "today's hottest" YouTubers, who will offer online viewers tips and tricks on ways to "become legends off the field."